CERIS Educator's Readers' Forum
K-16 Educators are invited to participate in the bi-annual Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies Faculty Readers' Forum.
The spring 2023 Book Discussion will take place February 21, 2023 at 6 PM Eastern Standard Time in person in 4217 Posvar Hall or via Zoom. Register Here: https://forms.gle/nH7dez2o188A2emh7
The book we are reading is Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America by Sohail Daulatzai.
The discussion will include the author, Dr. Sohail Daulatzai and Dr. Michael Sawyer.
"Linking discontent and unrest in Harlem and Los Angeles to anticolonial revolution in Algeria, Egypt, and elsewhere, Black leaders in the United States have frequently looked to the anti-imperialist movements and antiracist rhetoric of the Muslim Third World for inspiration. In Black Star, Crescent Moon, Sohail Daulatzai maps the rich, shared history between Black Muslims, Black radicals, and the Muslim Third World, showing how Black artists and activists imagined themselves not as national minorities but as part of a global majority, connected to larger communities of resistance. Daulatzai traces these interactions and alliances from the Civil Rights movement and the Black Power era to the “War on Terror,” placing them within a broader framework of American imperialism, Black identity, and the global nature of white oppression."
The discussion will be facilitated by Dr. Michael Sawyer, Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh. His work focuses on the revolutionary potentiality of Black people and takes a multi-disciplinary approach to exploring the works that authorize, accompany, sustain, and depict Black Being. Michael has published two monographs, An Africana Philosophy of Temporality: Homo Liminalis (Palgrave:2018) and Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X (Pluto: 020).
On February 23 at 6 PM there will be a follow-on teacher workshop for K-12 educators. The workshop will be led by Kate Daher, former Pittsburgh Public Social Studies Teacher and Curriculum Writer for the District. She has traveled extensively and written curriculum for African American history classes, social studies and more. Register at the link above. Teachers can get Act 48 credit.
About the author:
Born at the Af-Pak border, Sohail Daulatzai is a writer, curator and professor, and is the founder of Razor Step, an L.A. based media lab. He is the author of Fifty Years of “The Battle of Algiers”: Past as Prologue, as well as Black Star, Crescent Moon: The Muslim International and Black Freedom beyond America and co-editor of Born to Use Mics, a literary remix of Nas’s album Illmatic. He is the curator of the celebrated exhibit Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip-Hop, and editor of the limited edition, companion commemorative book of the same name, which includes an interview with Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) and an essay by Chuck D, the work of Jamel Shabazz, Ernie Paniccioli, and others, as well as album cover art, photography, flyers and other ephemera. He has written liner notes for the Sony Legacy Recordings Release of the 20th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set of Rage Against the Machine’s self titled debut album, the liner notes for the DVD release of Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme and the centerpiece in the museum catalog Movement: Hip-Hop in L.A., 1980’s – Now, and his other writings have appeared in The Nation, Counterpunch, Al Jazeera, Souls, Wax Poetics, and Artbound, amongst others.
He also curated the exhibit Histories Absolved: Revolutionary Cuban Poster Art and the Muslim International, which showcased the work of the Havana-based OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America) and their political graphic art of the 1960’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s with Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and other Muslim majority countries. He is the founder of Groundings, a conversation series that has included Yasiin Bey, Immortal Technique, Chuck D, Rosa Clemente, dream hampton, Brother Ali, Robin D.G. Kelley and Jasiri X.
He has been awarded and received funding from the University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media, the University of California “Public Partnership in the Humanities,” the Doris Duke Fund, and the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, amongst others. He has been invited to present his work throughout the world at academic conferences, universities, art institutions, galleries, and literary festivals, including at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Georgetown, Duke, Columbia, University of Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford, Oxford University, SOAS (in London), EHESS (in Paris), American University Beirut, the Paris Hip-Hop Festival, the William Grant Still Art Center, the Asian American Writers Workshop, the Muslim Protagonist Festival, the Grammy Museum, and elsewhere. He teaches in the Department of Film and Media Studies, the Department in African American Studies, and the Program in Global Middle East Studies at the University of California, Irvine.
Other Books By
Our Readers' Forum provides cross-disciplinary reading materials – including books (fiction and nonfiction), articles, and papers related to Islamic studies – and a venue for discussion and exchange of ideas. Our long term goal is to broaden current course curriculum at member institutions to include Islamic studies content in ongoing courses and/or the creation of new courses.
Books read:
Hate Your Policies, Love Your Institutions by John Waterbury, in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2003
No God but God: Egypt and the Triumph of Islam by Geneive Abdo
The Ornament of the World by Maria Rosa Menocal
Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations by Michael Anthony Sells
Orientalism by Edward Wadie Said
Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World by Carl M. Ernst
Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas by Sylvian A. Diouf
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Islam Without Fear: Egypt and the New Islamists by Raymond William Baker
Islam and the Secular State, Negotiating the Future of Shari’a by Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im
City of Oranges, An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa by Adam LeBor
The Crisis of Islamic Civilization by Ali Allawi
The Long Journey, In Search of Justice and Peace in Jerusalem by James G. Paharik
Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam by Akbar Ahmed
House of Stone by Anthony Shadid
In the House of Men by Hisham Matar
The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Paradise Beneath Her Feet, How Women Are Transforming the Middle East by Isobel Coleman
Revolution 2.0 by Wael Ghonim
Mornings In Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam, and Francis of Assisi's Mission of Peace by Paul Moses
Who is Allah, by Bruce B. Lawrence
A Sultan in Palermo: A Novel (The Islam Quintet), by Tariq Ali
Thomas Jefferson's Quran: Islam and the Founder by Denise A. Spellberg
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Beyond Timbuktu by Ousmane Oumar Kane
The Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Islam After Communism by Adeeb Khalid
The Bible and the Qur'an: Biblical Figures in the Islamic Tradition by Younus Mirza and John Kaltner
Jihad, Radicalism and the New Atheism by Mohammad Hassan Khalil
Who are the Uyghurs (selected readings)
Faces of Muhammad, Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today by John V. Tolan
Paths of Accommodation, Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania by David Robinson
Call Me American By Ibdi Nor Iftin
Meursault Investigation by Kamel Doued
